Hailing from Spain, HELEVEN rises from the deepest ocean with its new blend of raw Prog Metal music and grungy tinted voices. They continue the path where melancholic, ambient and heaviest metal parts shake the audience, from their houses, headphones, cars, to the stage. The new album here has ten songs. “Home” is the first song, and it’s a short intro, with deep clean vocals and clean guitars, seguing into “Echoes of the Past.” It has a very heavy deep end, almost akin to what you might hear from GOJIRA, especially in the harsh vocals, and that crossover between Industrial Metal and Progressive Metal. The clean passage gives the listener a bit of a reprieve as well that is overcome with weighted Djent guitar accents.

“The Mask” also begins with devastatingly heavy guitar accents and more low, grumbling harsh vocals. The harmonized cleans however lift up the sound out of the gutter a bit. But it is filthy, muddy, and nasty. “Wild from the Ashes” has a feverish pace at first before settling into a more ambient groove of lamenting clean vocals. The juxtaposition of the two styles hits like a freight train running into a compact car, and the lead guitar work is fantastic. “Killing my Perseus” has a very powerful groove that sounds like a treaded tank crushing the skulls of its enemies on the battlefield. The transition to the clean sound however is very stark, but they keep the chugging going underneath them.

“Empty Promises” hears more of the ambient and gentle side of the band come out. Even amidst the more delicate and emotional sound however, that heavy quaff of guitars is still present. “Gernkia” is another short song leading to the final three. It has a dark and shadowy presence, like a secret does. “Why” has some twisted key changes and a deep, Industrial sound from the near monotone vocals in the verses. This song is expansive, and it takes the form of a deep gorge within the mountains…plenty of sights to see. “Hope” closes the album, much like it opened, but done with a grandiose melody to go along with the vigorous sounds.

Overall, this was an exciting album that crossed a few different genres into a tight package, and it’s a tale of two competing sounds. The bulky and cumbersome side of the album is as heavy as anything that I have heard this year. But the lighter, more ambient side has some very strong melodies. The way that the band connects them can be sharp and unorthodox, but that it what makes the album provocative.